As part of a probe of leftwing nonprofits, a congressional committee subpoenaed BreakThrough News, the People’s Forum and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
U.S. House of Representatives building and the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol. (Ron Cogswell, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
By Stephen Prager
Common Dreams
Press freedom groups have issued dire warnings that House Republicans’ efforts to subpoena the nonprofit left-wing news organization BreakThrough News represent a dangerous new step in a McCarthyite war on political dissent.
On Wednesday, Fox News reported that BreakThrough, a New York-based outlet, was one of three nonprofits that had been issued subpoenas by the GOP-controlled House Ways and Means Committee as part of an investigation into $39 million worth of donations from tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, a self-described socialist who has used his wealth to fund left-wing nonprofits.
In letters sent Tuesday, the committee, led by Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), said that BreakThrough, as well as two other organizations — the People’s Forum Inc., a New York-based activist hub, and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research — had not turned over any documents that had been requested as part of an investigation into whether rules around tax exempt status for nonprofits should be tightened to protect against foreign influence.
The committee has accused Singham, an American who now lives in Shanghai, of exploiting the tax code and using shell companies and donor-advised funds to hide foreign money that has been used to promote the interests of the Chinese Communist Party. It does not, however, make any specific accusation of legal wrongdoing.
The subpoena requires BreakThrough News to turn over records about its finances, foreign donors and grant recipients, fiscal-sponsorship arrangements, and communications with Singham and any foreign entities.
BreakThrough News said it was “under attack.”
“For years, Republican lawmakers have painted a target on our backs, falsely claiming that our political views and reporting are part of some foreign plot,” the outlet said in a statement.
“Now, the MAGA-dominated House Ways and Means Committee has issued us a subpoena — demanding internal communications, financial records and more. Make no mistake, this is a flagrant abuse of power, and a direct attack on our work as journalists and on the First Amendment generally.”
BreakThrough News is under attack.
The House Ways and Means Committee has made us the target of its latest witch hunt. We’re not going down without a fight.
Go to https://t.co/2mYEsl3MYA and:
1- Add your name to the petition calling on the House Ways and Means Committee to… pic.twitter.com/Vr8uELkJJW
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) July 23, 2026
BreakThrough said it does not receive any funding from foreign governments or institutions and that it already complies with all the tax and public reporting requirements that nonprofits have to follow.
“We are not charged with any crime, because our only ‘crime’ has been to tell the truth – by covering the activities of the Palestine solidarity movement, unmasking the truth of ICE’s terror in our streets, and exposing Washington’s crimes around the world, from Cuba to the Congo,” the outlet said.
“That’s the journalism they want to shut down. Their goal is to saddle us with legal proceedings and hostile media to drain our resources and stop this important work.”
While the committee stated that they are investigating BreakThrough over its financing rather than its politics, letters sent to the organization have treated the content of its reporting as circumstantial evidence of malign foreign influence, referring to it as “anti-American” and claiming that its negative coverage of Israel was “sowing division within the United States.”
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution inscribed on a stairwell of the Manitowoc Herald-Times-Reporter in Wisconsin, 2014. (Kevin Anderson / Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Chip Gibbons, policy director of the free speech advocacy group Defending Rights & Dissent, told Common Dreams that the subpoena of BreakThrough was a “deeply chilling assault on the First Amendment.”
“Such tactics are, quite literally, a throwback to the House Un-American Activities Committee, which today is mostly viewed as a disgrace,” Gibbons said. “I say mostly, because just three days ago [Secretary Marco] Rubio’s State Department released a report preposterously attacking the US left, including some of these groups, as Cuban fronts that cited old HUAC reports.”
[See:Chris Hedges: Trump’s Phantom Leftwing Enemies]
He further emphasized in a press release that there was “no plausible need” for a news organization to provide documents as part of a broad congressional inquiry.
“The only thing these groups are accused of is essentially receiving donations from a U.S. citizen who has been the subject of an intensive campaign of demonization,” Gibbons said.
“It is lawful for Americans to donate to activist causes and media projects while holding views disfavored by Congress. This is clearly not a valid legislative inquiry at all, but an attempt to intimidate and chill dissenting opinions.”
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, agreed that “Congress shouldn’t be using a tax investigation as a pretext to dig through a newsroom’s internal communications or financial records.
“Freedom of the press,” he said, “applies to all journalists, regardless of whether politicians like their editorial slant or their politics.”
In what it has portrayed as a fight against “left-wing terrorism,” the Trump administration has increasingly blurred the lines between violent activity and protected political speech that they claim “incites” violence.
House subpoena of @BTnewsroom threatens press freedom.
We strongly urge the House Ways and Means Committee to withdraw its subpoena against BreakThrough News and stop using congressional oversight as a tool to retaliate against independent media.https://t.co/xPZgHkLPZd
— Freedom of the Press Foundation (@FreedomofPress) July 23, 2026
National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, signed by Trump in September, designates large swathes of left-wing viewpoints on race, gender, immigration, and other topics as “indicators” of domestic terrorism that have been used to link entire groups of people to violent acts they themselves did not commit.
[See: Prairieland Crackdowns Are Trump’s Palmer Raids]
Rubio said last week that the administration would soon be designating more left-wing organizations as terrorist groups, while senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller said that the full force of the state would be used to “disrupt, identify, defund, de-bank, arrest, prosecute” those deemed to “foment” political violence, not just those who actually commit it.
He has previously pledged to use the law to “dismantle” organizations that use heated rhetoric to refer to their right-wing opponents, including calling them “fascist” or “authoritarian.”
Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at Free Press, described the subpoena of BreakThrough as an extension of a “retaliatory ethos” Trump has taken towards critical journalists “with the goal of shutting down criticism and dissent.”
She told Common Dreams, “BreakThrough News is not the first, nor will it be the last, to come under official attack for bringing people alternative and useful news coverage about ICE abuses, foreign policy, Palestinian rights, and other topics.”
“Allowing a congressional committee to harass an independent newsroom with a broad subpoena sets an awful precedent,” Stern said. “If lawmakers can abuse tax oversight to single out outlets whose reporting offends them today, no newsroom in America is safe from government intimidation tomorrow.”
Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
The views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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“Some people dream of great accomplishments while others stay awake to do them,” i.e., “A Plan to Save the Planet,” NOVEMBER 24, 2021, by: *Tricontiental Institute for Social Research, Simon Bolívar Institute for Peace & Solidarity Among People.
….. *The Three [3] apartheids – of money, medicine, and food – govern the immediate situation in the world. What is the cause of these three apartheids? The control that a handful of companies and governments exercise over the global economy: 1) Control over science and technology; 2) Control over financial systems; 3) Control over access to resources; 4) Control over weaponry; 5) Control over communications.”
“ We, a network of research institutions that have been looking closely at the long-term crises of neoliberal austerity, induced debt regimes, and maldevelopment, have produced a set of policies towards a new world order.
Our plan – drawing from the lineage of the NIEO – puts forward a vision for the present and the immediate future centred on twelve key themes: democracy and the world order, the environment, finance, health, housing, food, education, work, care, women, culture, and the digital world. This is the skeleton of a much fuller plan that we will produce in the year ahead.”
*Tricontiental Institute for Social Research, Simon Bolívar Institute for Peace & Solidarity Among People @ hxxps://thetricontinental.org/text-a-plan-to-save-the-planet/ [11.24.21]
Message To: Trump-Vance, Inc.-Israel, “HANDS OFF!” ‘You fkng ba$tards’. TY. LeoSun.
AND, The BEA$T, just, won’t go to sleep!!! The Receipts, tracked by The Congressional Investigations Tracker that “follows select investigations impacting nonprofit organizations since 2023.” Geniuses @ *The International Center For Not For Profit Law
Follows, *“Congressional Investigations particularly Investigations into US Nonprofits.”
“The Tracker does not include the responses of nonprofit organizations, the government, or other entities to these investigations. For more information, view our analysis of congressional investigations.” Last updated 07/23/2026. NOTE: beginning date, 3.6.23. It’s mind blowing!
7.21.26: Subpoenas to counsel representing Breakthrough News, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, and the People’s Forum. House: Ways and Means. Subpoena.
…..8.7.26: “The subpoenas require the groups to turn over the requested materials by Aug. 7. The panel said the organizations’ failure to produce “a single responsive document” left it with no choice but to compel their compliance.”
7.20.26: Letter to DOJ regarding Plan C, for allegedly shipping abortion drugs into states whose laws prohibit them. No data. Letter
7.9.26: Letter to New Israel Fund, alleging, INF engaging in electioneering in violation of laws governing its tax-exempt status. Fund. House: Judiciary, House: Ways and Means. Letter.
Both sides, “Call for the AG to investigate the donation platforms, ActBlue & WinRed.”
6.3.26: Letters to ActBlue Directors and Board of Directors Chairwoman. House: Administration. House: Judiciary. House: Oversight. Letter.
….. “The documents requested include those related to the fraudulent and illegal political contributions, policies, practices, and procedures for preventing such contributions, as well as communications related to ActBlue’s response to congressional oversight, among others.”
6.1.26: Letter to Texas AG about WinRed. Multiple representatives. Letter.
…..Itsa “call for the AG to investigate the donation platform WinRed. The letter notes that recent investigations have raised concerns that WinRed has defrauded several individual donors while also potentially funneling “illegal foreign money into American elections”–allegations that recent Republican-led investigations have made against ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform.”
…August 15, 2025, Summit in Anchorage, AK., The Take away was the Russian Bear’s advise to the American Vulture” aka the Devil “we” know, DJ “Lucifer Lives Large” Trump-Vance, Inc.-Israel, “ALWAYS, ‘Aim for the Fairway.’ It couldn’t be that easy, could it? “If, no one asks, then no one answers. That’s how every empire falls.” John “R.I.P.” Prine.
Pray for Birdies! TY.
* International Center For Not For Profit Law @ hxxps://www.icnl.org/congressional-investigations
Awh, f/eh!!! *”BUT, the moon’s too bright. The chains too tight. The BEA$T! Just, won’t go to sleep!!!” I, LeoSun, f/double dawg dare ‘em to subpoena the Chinese Communist Party. “If, The Bea$t wants to strike [the CCP] down, in anger fueled by ignorance, no f/doubt about it, The CCP will stand & strike ‘em down w/diplomacy!”
IMO, Everybody, One. Everybody, Two. Everybody wants to LIVE FREE of’ Trump’s-Vance’s, Inc.-Israel’s modus operandi (MOD), “Kill, first. Think, later,” a Domestic & Foreign Policy. AND, a colossal call-out by Scott “Spot f/On” Ritter, “Propagating Propaganda.” @ hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2026/07/18/watch-twtw-israel-gets-its-way-again/
…..Hence, [“we”] gotta “believe that we are waking up from the spell that those that profit from the fear cast so well; And, good people of the earth now can tell, there is no us and them.” Melissa Etheridge.
“Look, there’s a lot of stuff happening here all at once’. And that precisely is what we’re trying to wrap our minds around.” hxxps://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/03/polycrisis-adam-tooze-historian-explains/
FORE! Example: MSM”s Headline, i.e., 7.22.26, YAHOO: “House panel subpoenas 3 left-wing groups in probe of $39M tied to Marxist tycoon Neville Singham. ‘FIRST ON FOX’: ‘The powerful House Ways and Means Committee has subpoenaed three left-wing nonprofits in an investigation into more than $39 million that flowed from Marxist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham to the groups. Fox News Digital has learned.’
“Pray for Birdies.” TY.
* Leonard Cohen (R.I.P.)
No law broken!
Flagrant Intimidation.
¿Where is the outrage?
This is a shocking development but not at all surprising.
Independent media, hanging by a tenuous thread as it is onto corporate social media — which, by the way, has compiled exquisitely detailed dossiers on everyone who reads and listens to it — has been doing an increasingly bang-up job demolishing ruling-class narratives and educating alienated, abused individuals everywhere to how this particular moment in history came about and where it is likely to wind up if the trajectory we on is not changed.
It is this trajectory that the individuals and institutions steering us on it for their personal benefit — short-term in reality, forever in their deluded fantasies of themselves — are willing to kill anyone and destroy anything to continue.
History abounds in repressive horrors as the does the present where the empire is expressing the full monstrosity of its savagery.
People who understand group behaviour better than I do may be right that this situation can be corrected by means of words alone. The effort the empire puts into winning its narratives war can certainly give one this impression; but when it is losing that war, then the class war it is always waging on us is fought by other means.
What are we supposed to do in reply? March around with a sign that says “No Kings?”
Organizing is hard enough. Revolution in a society groomed to leave governing itself to someone else seems for all intent and purposes impossible.
This turn of events is most concerning. It is an abuse of the freedom of expression/press. And
definitely authoritarian and wholly wrong to occur here. I want the Democrats in both House and Senate to get very very exercised over this and make big loud continuous good trouble – Why? To educate the public of THEIR brutalization – intellectually, politically, spiritually – by this Republican cult’s efforts in trying to crush our right to know the truth. The entire BS about “foreign influence” is pretty cute given that the Cult has voted to mesh Israeli with our USA military in their recent vote. Haven’t we been following the criminal Netanyahu’s marching orders by bombing Iran and by sending Israel loads of our tax monies to slaughter Palestinians –=– for how long has it been? Is Israel part of the USA or is it a foreign state?
Indeed. The country should change its name to the United States of Hypocrisy. I don’t hold out much hope that the Dems will do anything to stop this. They put service to empire before anything else. That’s how we got the Trumpster. We need a national strike. Take away the profits of the ruling class and watch how quickly they change their tune.